


Safe Harbor

by Shadowfall



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-14
Updated: 2014-04-14
Packaged: 2018-01-19 08:02:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1461850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowfall/pseuds/Shadowfall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short ficlet inspired by art from Kaciart on tumblr.<br/>A few months post Cap2, Steve’s at a coffeeshop when Bucky shows up. Without hydra's constant ‘caretaking’ his conditioning is starting to fall away and he’s very confused (also: ptsd)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe Harbor

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this art from the amazing artist Kaciart here - http://kaciart.tumblr.com/post/82540199747  
> Also the first fic that I've written in ages, so I'm a bit rusty.

The search for Bucky had come to a standstill. The trail, what little there was of it, had gone horribly cold. And nothing Steve or Sam did seemed to turn up anything new. So they returned to Washington. Sam to his job at the VA, as much as it chaffed him to be settle back into normalcy, and Steve to…nothing really. Stark had offered him his old room at the Tower, but Steve had turned it down. It had felt like there was still something unfinished. Bucky was still out there somewhere. Possibly. Even Steve was starting to wonder if the man that had once been his best friend had once more disappeared from his life, maybe for good.

Life went on. City repairs and cleanup of the fallen helicarriers were still happening while the residents picked up their own lives. With no SHIELD to issue orders and the rest of the government conspicuously silent when it came to their number one hero, Steve felt adrift. He’d taken to haunting the coffee shop around the corner from his apartment. The first time he’d appeared, it was a near thing that the barista on duty had nearly fainted in shock. But after coming back again and again, he’d become one of the regulars and was generally left alone.

He’d sit in an armchair next to the windows, but always with his back to the wall, and sketch. Sometimes the interior and the constantly changing customers. Sometimes scenes from outside with its familiar, and now comforting, bustle of city life returning to normal. But always, a familiar face appeared in the drawings somewhere. In a car window. Staring intently at a shopfront. Half hidden within the crowd.

Steve sighed with something close to exasperation at such preoccupation, at the urge to go out and do something about it but having no direction to move ahead with. He sipped at his coffee once before leaning back and staring morosely down at his sketch pad. His pencil seemed to move of its own accord, sketching out details of haunted eyes above a black smudge. He didn’t pay much heed to the people moving about the shop, even when someone paused next to his table.

'Can I sit down?' A rough voice asked, tugging at recognition. Steve looked up, startled to meet eyes that had followed him on paper every day since that last encounter on the helicarrier, now looking horribly exhausted. He gave a wordless nod and watched as the Soldier, no, Bucky practically dropped into the seat opposite Steve, shoulders tense and hunched, hands firmly in the pockets of his sweatshirt. Bucky leaned forward a few long moments later, hands moving push the hood back from tangled, unkempt hair before pressing against his lips as if restraining himself. From leaning across the table to throttle Steve, from clinging to the only person that might have answers and order for his mind, for having nothing better to do other than to keep them from hiding away in his pockets? Steve's lips curved gently as these thoughts flicked through his mind as he carefully set aside his pad and pushed his coffee across the table. Slowly. Very slowly. The man across from him may look like death warmed over, but the blond knew that anything could trigger combat reflexes and here was the last place he wanted to start a fight. It was a wonder Bucky stayed in the city at all. Or did he? Where had he been the last few months? Questions burned at Steve's lips but he waited, patiently, clasping his hands loosely on the tabletop and studying the face across from him.

'I didn't know where else to go.' Came the whispered voice, nearly lost amid the noise of the shop and the hands still tightly clenched in front of chapped lips. 'Nothing makes sense anymore. Nothing is left.' The voice paused and confused eyes met Steve's, staring into him, beseeching. 'Except you. Why?'

Steve blinked and something uncurled inside, and he had to resist the urge to reach out to the man in front of him. Instead he reached forward to nudge the coffee, smiled and tilted his head to the side. “Where do you want to start?”

**Author's Note:**

> This one practically wanted to write itself. It was a mean, insistent little plot bunny too. Lol!  
> This is, for now, just a mini ficlet. But I'm debating on continuing on it. Maybe.


End file.
